ROCKFORD — Three chimes will ring throughout Rockford Memorial Hospital on Tuesday after a moment of silence for three lives lost on the same day last year.

Patients and visitors likely will see more employees wearing blue that day, as well as ribbon pins, wristbands and T-shirts remembering Jim Dillow, Karen Hollis and Andy Olesen, members of the REACT medical flight crew who died in rural Compton when the helicopter they were flying to pick up a patient crashed.

Crew members and the victims' families will gather Tuesday morning at the helicopter hangar for a private memorial, and the rest of the hospital staff is invited to a memorial ceremony later that night.

Chief Nurse Executive Sue Schreier said crew members worked with the families to develop plans for the one-year anniversary of the crash. The moment of silence is scheduled for 3 p.m.; the hospital's chaplain will speak, and then three chimes will ring, one for each victim.

"There was really such an outpouring from the community and from the regional EMS providers," said Schreier, remembering the response after the crash last year.

"This is not a journey that you can ever plan. Because we work in health care, we always have some education and some experiences with the grief process and how to support the grief process. But a grief process for an organization, it was really new territory."

The Sheet Metal Workers Local 219 unit built a helicopter memorial for the Labor Day parade and donated the piece to the hospital. Schreier said the memorial was put on a pedestal in front of the hangar and a plaque was added with the names of Dillow, Hollis and Olesen.

Flight-crew members returned to the air during the summer with a new EC 135 helicopter detailed with three stars to honor and remember the crash victims.

"The crew is just remarkable," Schreier said. "They're still very intent on their work. ... They are a part of the community."

Rockford Health System is partners with Air Methods for the flight program. Air Methods previously employed the pilots and the mechanics but now employs the entire crew, a change that was already in the works before the crash.